Dahl to celebrate expansion with wall bashing, reception

By Scott Aust, Journal staff | Monday, May 07, 2007

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RAPID CITY — To celebrate the start of the long-awaited Dahl Arts Center expansion, a ceremonial wall bashing is scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday, May 11, at the Dahl, 713 Seventh St.

Linda Anderson, executive director, said liability issues won’t allow people to swing a sledgehammer but that the ceremony is the next best thing to mark the start of the project.

“It will actually be more staged because of safety concerns,” she said with a laugh. “We were kind of hoping we could do a real wall bashing. We’ve handed over the keys to the MDU, and they’re in there demolishing as we speak.”

The contractor will demolish a brick wall on the south side of the Dahl as part of the “wall bash,” and attendees will be encouraged to leave a donation and take a piece of the old Dahl with them as a keepsake, Anderson said.

After the wall-bashing ceremony, the Dahl will host a reception for three American Indian artists, all from western South Dakota, who were named 2006 Bush Artist Fellows by the Bush Foundation.

Dwayne “Chuck” Wilcox of Rapid City, Kevin Pourier of Scenic and Viola Colombe of Mission were among 15 artists chosen from more than 650 applications.

The Bush artist fellowship program supports artists whose work reflects any of the region’s diverse geographic, racial, cultural and aesthetic communities. It provides artists with significant financial support to help them further their work and contributions to their communities.

An exhibit titled “Old Ways, New Days” will feature art work from the three fellows from May 11 to July 14 in the Ruth Brennan Gallery at the Dahl.

n Wilcox, who was self- taught, documents contemporary Lakota life through the tradition of ledger drawings. His work has been featured at the Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum in Phoenix and at the Northern Plains Tribal Art Market.

n Pourier, an Ogalala Lakota, carves and inlays designs made of crushed stones and shells in the Northern Plains style on buffalo horns, with subject matter centering on the human condition of Indian people.

n Colombe was born at the Klamath Indian Agency in Oregon, is an enrolled member of Oklahoma’s Modoc Tribe and her home is the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. She reflects all those traditions, and her own unique impulses, in her star quilts.

Construction on the first phase of the Dahl renovation started April 30. The first phase will remodel the former MDU building into an education complex with painting, drawing and pottery classrooms, offices and meeting rooms. After that phase is completed, anticipated in November, the Dahl will close its doors for renovation.

The Rapid City Arts Council, which manages the city-owned Dahl, will continue to operate arts programs in the education complex and various other locations throughout 2007-08.

The new Dahl is anticipated to open in late fall 2008. The project will include improved climate-controlled galleries to preserve and protect art; a visual arts complex with five galleries including the Bruce H. Lien children’s interactive learning center and the 180-foot, hand-painted mural of American Economic History; exhibit staging and storage rooms; a community arts education complex with three fully equipped visual arts classrooms; artist and arts organization support spaces and a gift shop.

A flexible event center, the John T. Vucurevich Event Center will connect the existing buildings and is designed to accommodate small audience performances of 250 people or fewer and to provide space for after school programs, workshops, receptions, sit-down dinners, films and convention meetings. The renovated Dahl will also include the Bruce H. Lien Cultural Cafe, an area designed for coffee house and open mike performances.

For updates on the project, go to www.thedahl.org/newdahl.

Contact Scott Aust at 394-8415, or scott.aust@rapidcityjournal.com